


This House is Falling Apart

by Haddi_Etana3



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Past Child Abuse, theres an axe somewhere in the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 18:22:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9561308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haddi_Etana3/pseuds/Haddi_Etana3
Summary: Shiro helps Lance find some relief from his past.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was mostly just me venting my own feelings lmao, sorry Lance for shoving this shit on you, bro. So, yeah, if any of this is incoherent it's because it was written in a flush of emotion with Anna Sun on repeat.

For as long as Shiro has known Lance he’s been a ball of constant energy. That energy was either disposed into sarcastic remarks he bit at Pidge and Keith or towards casually flirting with others. But other times it went to making people happy, something he seemed uncannily good at. More particularly he knew what people would like, so he was great at giving gifts. He even knew what Keith liked, the guy who didn’t know what he  _ himself  _ wanted. While everyone struggled to find Keith something he wouldn’t return the next day, Lance had already bought him something he would adore.

It made Shiro wonder if he was going to run out of gift ideas sometime in the future, if they all still hung around each other, that is. The group- Lance, him, Allura, Coran, Hunk, Pidge, and Keith- had known each other for only a year and a half. Somehow it felt longer, though.

Maybe it was because of the bundle of drama, from Pidge’s family being missing to Allura mourning her lost father, and Shiro’s kidnapping to Hunk going through chemo. By some odd twist of the world they were bunched together when all of them were going through the worst year of their lives.

Occasionally Shiro wondered if they’d ever see light at the end of the tunnel. He felt so hopeless at the hands of his PTSD and all he wanted to do was sleep and never wake up. But he would remind himself of the time Hunk heard his analogy about the tunnel and how they were stuck in it. Hunk had told him that they may be stuck in it, but one of them was always willing to hold a flashlight so they could see each other. It was cheesy, but Hunk made cheesey mean so much more.

Lance held the lamp more than the others. For a good while Shiro was convinced he was the only one in the group who didn’t have some big drama or traumatic experience he was going through. The most that affected Lance was Hunk’s cancer, due to the fact they’d known each other a long while. But after a night trapped inside of an ice cream parlor on the far outskirts of town while they waited for police to show up, Shiro learned there was more to it than that.

Keith and Lance had fought. Bickering was common between them, but not serious fights. Keith had gotten strung up and had told Lance that he was lucky he even had a family, and Lance stopped saying anything after that. Instead he opted for a more physical conversation that resulted in bleeding noses and bruised knuckles.

Shiro tried to talk to Keith after hearing about it, but the kid locked himself up in his room after that. Hunk, who was bedridden due to a more extreme episode from his cancer, asked Shiro to make sure Lance was okay. And so he did.

They ended up at an ice cream shop somehow and got locked in when Lance tried to hide in one of the bathroom stalls and Shiro was trying to get him to come out. After the ice cream parlor’s lights shut off, Lance came out and they tried to escape the shop, but to no avail.

Then, probably because the quietness of the night time and the vulnerability that came with it, Lance spilled his guts. The occasional flinching, the fear of loud noises, how he shut down when things got too intense, him leaving the room whenever a movie started dipping it's toe in unwanted sexual advances, his need to make sure others were happy; everything made sense after that.

Shiro wanted to hold him, wanted to wrap him up and hide him away from anything that would hurt him, but Lance said he didn’t want to be touched at the moment. So instead Shiro sat across from him in a comfortable silence before the police got them out.

Now, a month later, they were parked outside of a broken down farmhouse. It and it's land was purchased by Coran and was ready to remodeled and repurposed.

It was Allura who mentioned their most recent buy, which wasn’t uncommon, she always told them about the things they bought in hope for any good ideas of what they should turn it into it (Even though it was always the same answers. Every time). When Allura mentioned the street it was on, Shiro noticed Lance’s leg thumping like a rabbit’s.

And he certainly didn’t miss how Lance spoke to Allura in private after that.

Shiro was the last to linger in Allura’s house, everyone else departing after their get together, and he had seen the red rimmed eyes from Allura as she quietly walked passed the living room to head upstairs. When Lance came out after that he looked at Shiro and asked if he could drive him somewhere.

That’s how they ended up at Lance’s old house with an axe they’d just bought from Home Depot.

Lance sat in the passenger side, fingers twitching and a hard expression on his face. Shiro didn’t move, not wanting to make the experience worse with his words and presence. In fact he’d planned to stay in the car the entire time, not wanting to disturb Lance’s climax in his ongoing healing.

But Lance jumped out of the car and grabbed the axe out of the back, then when he passed the car he looked through the passenger side window to ask Shiro, “You gettin’ out or what?” His voice was light, but Shiro had pieced together in the past month that it didn’t always mean he was okay.

Shiro raised a brow at him, “You want me to come in?”

“Well it's not exactly the best of temperature's, muscle man. It’s freezing and your AC is broken, moving would help warm you up a bit.” He snorted playfully, “Come on, you really think I’m so cruel that I’d abandon you outside?” Lance finished dramatically.

Shiro wanted to say that he would never think Lance of being cruel, that it’d make sense to leave Shiro outside because this was a sensitive moment of Lance’s life. He wanted to say that it wasn’t even that cold, and that moving around would probably make him colder instead. But he didn’t. Something told him that Lance was just trying him to come along. He wanted Shiro there, or more specifically he wanted support from another human being.

So Shiro got out and walked besides Lance towards the rickety steps.

It was very much a typical country house. While it didn’t look ages old, it didn’t look like it was occupied either with an absent of liveliness a lived-in home gave off.

When Lance stopped it was to look at the fencing on the front porch, a goofy smile on his face. “Yo, you see this?” He rubbed his fingers over three small holes, each with chipped paint around it that broke off when Lance touched it.

“What is it?” Shiro asked, leaning in and tilting his head at it.

“So like,” Lance giggled, “When I was about twelve my sister, my brother, and I were sitting out here eating cereal at, like, three in the morning. Well my brother started pissing himself because he was convinced the goat man or some shit was around the road because he kept seeing red and-and he fucking lost it and stabbed his fork into the railing because we kept calling him a nut job. Then there was this wail and we all collectively lost our shit.

“We stayed inside and kept telling mama that something was fucked up outside and it turns out it was this kid from school that was biking by and wanted to fuck with us by using his back bike reflector.” Lance shook his head fondly, “That kid got into so much trouble but we all ended up finding it hilarious. Well, everyone but my brother. I’m pretty sure he’s still angry about it.”

Shiro smiled. He always loved hearing stories about what him and his family did together, because all of them were warm and happy, even the ones about fighting, because in the end they always ended up forgiving each other.

Lance didn’t spend any longer on the memory, turning and taking a quick look around the front porch. He then walked up to the front door and took the keys out that Allura had given him. The bottom lock was easy to get undone, but Lance jiggled the key in a weird way for the second one. If Shiro remembered right, Lance had told him a story about how one of his brother’s shoved a twig in there when they were really young.

The door opened after a beat and Lance took a huge breath of air in, then let out an even bigger one. “And I am home.” He smiled, looking around the front living room as they walked in.

Little touches of what was once there littered the room. From the stains on the carpets to the scuffs on the walls, each of them had stories that Lance probably knew to heart.

Then Lance started to babble on. He pointed to everything and anything, telling the stories that occurred in the living room. Then after the living room came the hallway, and from the hallway to the dining room.

It wasn’t until they were in the kitchen when Lance started to tense up. He was lost in telling a story about some dark thing that was stuck to the ceiling when he had quickly ended the story. In the kitchen he kept glancing at something, so Shiro followed where his line of sight kept redirecting to. It was a door.

Lance, after a second, spoke up, “That’s the pantry. Way too many times did one of us get stuck in this little crawl space inside there while playing hide and seek.”

Shiro looked back at the other man. He had an expression that seemed like a mix of fondness and uncomfort. Then it simmered down to sadness.

“Did you ever get stuck in it?” Shiro heard his voice ask, and then felt a bit like an ass for speaking in the first place.

Before he could shuffle out an apology for asking- because he’d promised Lance profusely he wouldn’t say or ask anything unless Lance had wanted his opinion or questions- Lance moved towards the door and spoke.

He answered with his back to Shiro. “Way too many times.”

His voice was flat. His entire body looked like a chore for him to hold up because his shoulders were sagging and he looked a lot smaller than he was.

It was only when Lance brought his hand up that Shiro noticed how one part of the door was painted a shade darker than the rest. It looked like it had been re-plastered over and repainted.

Shiro’s entire body shivered uncomfortably and couldn’t stop imagining what broke the door.

Then the air shifted and Lance took a step away from the pantry to ramble on about something else. Shiro wondered if it was healthy to jump around from emotion to emotion the way Lance did, but didn’t say anything. Should he?

Lance smiled as he rubbed a burnt spot on the counter that he had just explained as a popcorn mishap, then looked up at Shiro. “Me and my ma used to sit in front of the oven and eat the leftovers together when we both couldn’t sleep. She would fill me in on the soap opera from the night before and I would tell her about what happened in Degrassi.”

Shiro laughed lightly, “You- you use to watch  _ Degrassi _ ?”

“Hey! It was a fantastic show for it's time!”

“It was one of the most exaggerated things I’d ever seen.”

“Okay, so maybe I did go into high school expecting a full on shit show of drama because of it- but who cares, it was good!” Lance defended.

Shiro shook his head, still smiling, “Sure Lance, whatever makes you happy.”

Lance snorted and pushed Shiro’s shoulder as he passed him, “Yeah, well, it’s better than whatever the hell you watched.”

“I used to watch true crime.”

“Oh my god.” Lance turned to look at Shiro, face filled with horror. “That’s absolutely horrible. I’m so sorry.”

Shiro laughed again, following Lance as they headed back through the living room to go up the stairs.

As they climbed up the steps Lance started humming something familiar, and Shiro had no doubt he’d heard it before. Whenever you were in a car with Lance he would always, without fail, somehow obtain the aux cord, even if everyone was keeping from him. The songs he played were usually atrocious but catchy. No one would admit they found them funny.

(While looking for a song he’d forgotten the name of on Keith’s phone he’d found all the albums of Bo Burnham on it. Keith threatened to tell everyone about the time Shiro accidently ribbed his boxers and pants in public and had to hide his package behind a hoodie tied around his waist and a take out box from a restaurant they’d just came from. Naturally, Shiro didn’t say a word)

However when he did play music that didn’t come from a comedian or was just bizarre, he played something that everyone enjoyed. Shiro was amazed by how good he was at knowing what people liked.

As they walked down the hall Lance kept humming, drumming his thumb against the axe handle. It was then Shiro noticed Lance’s walking had changed. He stepped with one foot in front of the other, instead of his usual outward glide. And Shiro didn’t think he was doing it intentionally.

He expected Lance to continue pointing out memories, explaining another wonky story about some misfit activities. But they’d passed everything, from a height chart to little colored dots on the wooden floor that someone had tried to rub away, but instead smeared in deeper. Without Lance’s explanations, Shiro started to guess their stories.

He thought about Lance getting his height checked by his mom and watching his siblings get their height marked too. He also imaged Lance coloring in a coloring book but accidently marking the floor too. Then there was a dent in the wall with a yellow scuff against it, and he thought of Lance playing with a toy only the ram it into the wall.

Shiro hadn’t noticed that Lance stopped until he was a step away from the younger man. They were two doors down from the end of the hallway. There were old nail holes, about five, in the door that Lance stopped in front of, but no nails were in anymore.

“This,” Lance started slowly, breaking his hum to speak, “Was my room.”

The younger man grabbed the doorknob, and held it tighter than he needed to. Then he opened the door calmly, it creaking after years of use.

Inside was barren, just as the rest of the house was, but it had it's markings too to show Lance had been there.

He started humming again and continued to not explain anything in the room.

Then Shiro remembered all the things Lance had told him. From the ice cream shop and the two times Lance had confided in Shiro that past month, Shiro started to recall what this room meant to Lance. Four perfectly separated scrape marks across the floor marked where the bed once was and Shiro’s gut twisted and his eyes stinged.

He wanted to leave the room but Lance seemed calm enough to stay. But in all honesty, it was hard to know what Lance really felt sometimes when he was practiced in fake smiles and silly stories.

Shiro broke out of his disgusted feelings when he heard Lance softly singing, his thumb still drumming against the axe. He walked around the room, gazing at the faint blue wall paper and some painted over holes.

Everything about Lance seemed to be composed and ordered, mummering lyrics that talked about doors and houses. The lyrics started to build up, and as the beat of his thumb increased, his voice began to crack more and more.

Finally, from the doorway, Shiro could see Lance’s face as he turned to look at where the bed used to be. As he continued to sing under his breath his face was scrunched up with pain, confusion, and anger.

His thumb stopped the beat of the song and he gripped the axe with both hands.

Then, Lance raised the axe and slammed it into the ground, loudly grunting out the chorus “What do you know, this house is falling apart!”

Shiro instinctively stepped back, listening to the crack of the wood as it weakened under the axe. Lance raised it again with the next line and dropped it down at the end of the sentence. The wood broke completely, revealing the insulation and some of the room directly below his room, which was the kitchen.

Lance’s face was wet and he kept raising the axe and bringing it down on the floor of where the bed used to be, screaming the lyrics to a song that Shiro now remembered. It was the chorus, over and over again, either spit out bitterly or sang sadly. It was like he was expressing a flux of emotion with every redo of the chorus.

The crack of the wood and the slamming of the axe made Shiro flinch, watching as Lance’s emotions bled out of him. He wasn’t sure if Lance had ever let the things that happen to him burst out the way it was. He’d talked to Hunk about it and told some to Shiro. But other than that? He had told no one.

As far Shiro knew Lance’s mom, his siblings, his father, his cousins, aunts, uncles- none of them knew the things that happened behind closed doors or in the dead of night. They didn’t know the things that occurred in the room over while they were late night reading or didn’t notice when two people left the bathroom at different times. The didn’t notice the bruises or the scars, they didn’t notice the stuttering, the pain, the flinching, they didn’t see or recognize it.

“I hate this fucking room!” Lance shrieked, parting from the song and redirected his axe towards the wall. He hit it twice before the thing got stuck. Lance grunted while he tried pulling it out and shouted, “It fucking took everything! I’ve always felt so fucking hollow in this shitty place, and I went to bed for years wanting to slit my damn throat!”

Lance sobbed, finally tugging the axe out of the wall but fell back onto the floor. He didn’t grab the axe or try to get up. Instead he was rubbing his legs, the back of his neck his forehead like there were bugs crawling all over him, sobs choking him as he spoke a mess of spanish and english.

Shiro quickly went to his side, not touching Lance but instead firmly saying, “Lance. Lance look at me, please.”

Lance looked up, still rubbing his neck, face swelling with tears and pain. Shiro wasn’t sure what he should say next, but found that he didn’t have to say anything when Lance threw himself into Shiro’s chest, shaking and rubbing his head into Shiro’s jacket, like he wanted to hide.

“I-I fuck-fucking hate this shi-shitty room. It-It doesn’t eve-even get warm i-in the winter because of th-the AC.” His voice broke into Shiro’s chest.

Shiro wrapped his arms around Lance’s back, careful not to touch his neck or nuzzle his forehead on accident. He just held him closely, quietly humming Anna Sun while he rocked back and forth with the man in his arms.

It wasn’t until twenty minutes later that they were leaving, Lance without the axe. He had left that in the door of the room across from his.


End file.
